BENJAMIN SHAW

It’s a hell of a time for our first post of the year, isn’t it? Don’t mind us while we dust off the keyboard and clean all of the shit out of our inbox.

Once again, Jamie from Audio Antihero has pushed us out of our slumber. That’s a good thing (I hope). We’ve had a go-around with Nosferatu D2 (brilliant) and Broken Shoulder (sublime) in the past, but this time it’s “singer-songwriter” Benjamin Shaw. “Singer-songwriter” is in quotes because it’s a shit way to describe a musician.

There’s Always Hope, There’s Always Cabernet is quite a noisy record, putting an artsy, dissonant spin on a marriage between Hefner and Sparklehorse. It’s all of the good stuff you wouldn’t find from someone described as a “singer-songwriter.” Admittedly, I prefer the noise to the folkier moments, but when a label describes a record as “probably our proudest moment,” one really needs to drop what they’re doing and listen up. Start with “How to Test the Depth of a Well” for the best tune to get you through the rest of the winter alive.